Two West Bank Arabs Get Life Sentences

Two West Bank Arabs were sentenced to life imprisonment by a military court Thursday for the strangulation murder of an Israeli soldier, 19-year-old David Manos, in November 1984.

Mahmoud Karoush and Tewfik Ibrahim Abdullah, both from Deir Balach village in the West Bank, were arrested in March 1985 following a police investigation that began when the missing soldier’s body was found. According to the prosecution, they killed Manos after giving him a lift in their ca near Ben Gurion Airport.

Relatives of the murdered soldier created a scene in court when the sentence was pronounced. They screamed invectives at the convicted men and struck one in the head with a large rock. Manos’ family was angered apparently because one member of the three-judge panel who asked for the death penalty was overruled by his colleagues.